News

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times  column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.

At the December 12, 2017 meeting of the UWEC University Senate, Senators voted resoundingly in favor of a resolution affirming its support of open, transparent shared governance.

The motion was introduced in response to events at UW-Superior and UW-Stevens Point earlier that fall in which administrators announced plans to unillaterally eliminate or suspend major and minor programs on their campuses without following established governance procedures.

In passing the resolution, the UWEC University Senate not only expressed its disapproval of the actions of administrators at UW-Superior and UW

In Spring 2019, one-third (n=290) of all academic staff and faculty completed a survey about working conditions on campus—the first effort in a long time to find out how UWEC employees feel about their jobs. A full presentation of the results was presented at the union’s spring Membership Meeting; it is available as a Powerpoint file here: academic_staff_survey_presentation.pptx

Problems and Solutions Our objectives were to learn what problems and concerns academic staff and faculty have with their working conditions and how we can improve them. As you might guess, pay was the biggest concern

On October 27, 2016, at the Fall membership meeting, UFAS-UWEC members voted unanimously to approve a recommendation on how Chancellor Schmidt should allocate $3 million in one-time money among staff and faculty at UW-Eau Claire.

Four UFAS-UWEC members designed a short survey of all employees on campus regarding how they thought the money should be allocated; the survey ultimately collected 251 responses. Peter Hart-Brinson presented the results of the survey, which showed that UWEC employees, in general, valued both equity and merit equally. It further showed that they thought providing all